The Magical Lantern: Explore the Silk Road is a spectacular fusion of art, heritage and culture which is set outside.

Explore the Silk Road

The journey

This is it’s second year and this year the lanterns created scenes from Europe to China. There was even a scene on Aladdin. All the lanterns were spectacular and full of colour. I especially loved the lanterns which were next to the water as the reflections hitting the water looked stunning. I also love the massive panda bear with its beady green eyes.

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Food stalls

Along the magical journey of colour around Chiswick Gardens half way you will come across a few stalls one selling marshmallows, a stall selling drink, and a stall selling festival merchandise.

I especially love the marshmallow stall as they sell all unique flavours from passionfruit & ginger to plain vanilla and you can cook your chosen marshmallow over a fire pit. I chose the passionfruit & ginger one which was full of flavour of the passionfruit and my husband had blueberry & gin marshmallow which he said was very fruity. I highly recommend to anyone that loves marshmallows as they are full of flavour and very fun to cook.

More stall and fun things to do

At the end of your walk around the grounds you will come across yet more stalls selling various burgers, crepes, drinks, festival merchandise stalls, ice skating rink, virtual reality games area, ice bar plus a few fairground rides. Apart from the food and drink stalls the fairground rides etc are new to the festival. For me having the funfair etc at the festival sort of ruined the whole magic of the festival for me as I had just experienced a lovely walk admiring such beauty in such tranquil grounds then I am hit by this mass of noise and ugliness.

Verdict

Even though I enjoyed the lanterns I did not enjoy it as much as last year unfortunately. Last years for me had more of a wow factor as the lanterns mainly consisted of animals and I love animals. Plus also last year there seemed to be more lanterns and not so sparse. I am however though looking forward to revisiting in 2018 to see what new journey of lanterns I will be doing.

To find out more about Magical Lantern

Click here to find out more about Magical Lantern Explore the Silk Road and their upcoming festivals.